The Flaw in the Plan
by AceOfDiamonds8
Summary: “James, you have a plan to make Lily fall in love with you every five minutes, and they never work.” "But this time's different! This plan is flawless." Marauder era, JP/LE


**Summary:**

_"James, you have a plan to make Lily fall in love with you every five minutes, and they never work."_

_"But this time's different! This plan is flawless."_

Marauder-era James/Lily. I got the idea for this while I was reading HBP.

The Marauder's first 6th year potions lesson gives James an idea to finally get Lily to fall in love with him. He thinks this new plan is his best yet and is guaranteed to work, but his friends disagree. And maybe they could be right.

**WARNING:** there will be some mild slash in later chapters (although James/Lily is the main pairing), so read at your own caution. :) (I can't tell you what the pairing will be, that would ruin it.)

**DISCLAIMER: **I am not J.K. Rowling or Warner Bros. or anyone else who owns anything to do with _Harry Potter_. I am not making any money from this. It's for enjoyment purposes only.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Lily Evans walked alone down into the dungeons for her first potions lesson of the year. None of her friends were taking N.E.W.T. level potions and Lily would much rather be in the common room with them, enjoying a free period. Unfortunately, she was one of Professor Slughorn's favourite pupils and felt obliged to continue his subject, so after lunch instead of following her friends up to Gryffindor Common Room, she left them to head down into the dungeons.

Lily entered the classroom to find that most of the class were already there, as only a handful of students had done well enough in their Potions O.W.L. to continue. Lily quickly glanced around the room

To fin somewhere to sit: there was a table of Ravenclaw students who already had their noses buried in their new copies of _Advanced Potion-Making_, and Lily spotted her ex-best friend Severus sitting with some other evil-looking Slytherins. She quickly turned away- they hadn't spoken to each other since last year, and that wasn't going to change soon. Lily could hear Professor Slughorn talking loudly to a group of Gryffindor boys across the room.

"I taught your brother, of course, but it would have been lovely if you were in my house too... To collect the full set, you know," he was saying to Sirius Black, who looked as if he couldn't imagine anything worse than being 'collected' by Slughorn. Before Sirius could voice his opinion, Slughorn spotted Lily, still standing by the door.

"Ah, Miss Evans! Come, come, sit down... Now, I think that's everyone, so shall we get started?"

Lily had been ushered into the last remaining seat at the Gryffindor table, which unfortunately happened to be directly opposite James Potter. Arrogant, annoying, bullying James Potter who had an inexplicable and utterly unwelcome crush on - no, more like _obsession with _- Lily. He seemed thrilled that he had been given an opportunity to stare at Lily for the whole lesson, either not realising or not caring that she wished she was sitting anywhere other than new him. The other boys sitting around the table were Potter's equally insufferable, arrogant friends. Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. "The Marauders" they called themselves, which Lily thought was a stupid name. Lily was surprised that Peter had done well enough on his Potions O.W.L. to be in the N.E.W.T. class. He was always a bit slow and never did as well as his friends. They had obviously given him a lot of help. Lily found it absolutely infuriating that Potter and Black were so bloody good at everything when they never seemed to study at all.

"Now then," said Professor Slughorn, "welcome to your first N.E.W.T. potions class. I thought I'd start by showing you some of the potions you'll be learning to make over the next two years. Can anyone tell me what this one is?"

He gestured to one of the bubbling cauldrons lined up at the front of the class. Lily had to turn around and crane her neck to see into the cauldron.

"Veritaserum, sir," said a Ravenclaw girl almost immediately.

"Yes, yes, well done. Can you tell me what it does?"

But Lily never got to find out what it did, as at that moment she felt something hit the back of her head. She turned around to glare at a grinning James Potter who was gesturing towards a crumpled up piece of scrap parchment on her desk, which he had obviously just thrown at her. Scowling, Lily smoothed out the parchment.

"First Hogsmead weekend next week. How about it? ;)" was written on it in Potter's hurried, untidy handwriting, complete with a hastily drawn picture of Potter's winking face. She looked up to see the real Potter winking at her in an identical way. It made Lily feel a bit sick.

"In your dreams," Lily hissed across the table, showing the parchment back towards him. She turned back around in time to hear the Professor saying "Excellent! Five points to Ravenclaw!" and Sirius murmuring "bad luck, Prongs," behind her. Lily had heard James' friends call him 'Prongs' before and wasn't sure she wanted to know where the nickname came from.

"Miss Evans, maybe you'd like to tell me what this next potion is?"

Lily jumped at the sound of her name.

"Um... Of course," she said, scrutinising the potion, which was closer to her table than the last one so she didn't have to strain herself to see it. It had a pearly sheen and it was emmitting perfect spirals of smoke. Lily wracked her brains, trying to remember which potion had those characteristics- and then the smell hit her. It was beautiful, unlike anything shed ever smelled before.

"Amortentia," she breathed. "The most powerful love potion in the world."

"Wonderful! Five points to Gryffindor!" he then launched into a speech about how to recognise the potion, but Lily wasn't listening- she was sure she could hear excited whispering from the boys behind her and hoped against hope that James Potter wasn't getting any of his bright ideas.

* * *

"Boys, I have had an amazing idea," James announced to his friends that evening as they sat in their favourite armchairs in front of the fireplace.

"Prongs, I told you earlier, it's a terrible idea, it's never going to work-"

"Shut up Padfoot! Moony and Wormtail haven't heard my amazing plan yet and I bet _they'll_ love it."

"Ooh, what is it? Tell us, James!" Peter squeaked excitedly, bouncing up and down in his chair, while Remus surveyed the boys sceptically over the top of his book.

"I've come up with a new plan to make Lily fall in love with me."

Peter stopped bouncing and looked disappointed; he had been hoping for something a lot more adventurous.

"James, you have a plan to make Lily fall in love with you every five minutes, and they never work," Remus pointed out.

"But this times different!" James insisted. "This plan is flawless."

Remus sighed. "Alright then. Tell us your Almighty Master Plan."

"I am going to give Lily a love potion," he said dramatically, expecting a much better reaction than what he got.

"I'm going to have to agree with Sirius. That is a bit of a stupid idea, James," Remus said. "First of all, where are you going to _get_ a love potion? And secondly, it probably won't work anyway but if it does, once the potion wears off and she finds out what you did, she'll hate you even more than she does now."

"Not to mention what'll happen if someone else accidentally drinks the potion instead of her," Peter added.

"That's exactly what I told him, but he won't listen," said Sirius from his lounging position on the rug in front of the fire.

"Come on guys, it's not as bad as you're making out. And anyway, if it's going to work, I'm going to need you guys to help me," James said, looking pleadingly at his friends.

"Well I, for one, am having absolutely nothing to do with this," Remus said, closing his book. "And I'm going to bed before you come up with any more brilliant ideas."

"Sorry Prongs, but I'm with Moony on this one," Sirius said, giving his friend an apologetic look as he followed Remus up to the dormitory.

"You'll help me, won't you, Wormtail?" James pleaded, turning on the last remaining marauder.

Peter squirmed uncomfortably. He wasn't good at saying no to James, especially when he used those puppy dog eyes...

"Of course I will, Prongs."

A grin spread across James' face.

"I can always count on you, Pete."

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**A/N: Sooo, what do you think? This is my first fanfiction (Well, the first fanfiction I've actually finished and posted online.) and I haven't really written anything in ages so I'm a bit out of practice. Hopefully this isn't too bad. The next chapter should be better and hopefully longer. :) Reviews would be nice. Even if you didn't like it, tell me how I can improve. **


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